Playing May 5th Machynlleth Comedy Festival 2013andTouring widely October November 2013

PRESS COPY

Following hard on the heels of last year's very popular shows, Lady in the Van and Same Time Next Year, bonkers Mid Wales outfit Theatre Rue presents a dark, brooding meditation on the banking crisis, spiced up with music, dancing and some bare legs. Taking as its source material a hackneyed, yet startlingly relevant, Victorian melodrama based on Dickens' classic (of which, alas, only one sentence remains)

Very Hard Times offers an unusual perspective on our economic climate that is by turns thrilling, chilling and tragic. As the lights fade up we dimly perceive a low-income couple with one child. A knock on the door... and their lives are changed forever by the irresistible temptations of a loan shark. Greed, envy and lust take hold, while the hero weighs up the pros and cons of recapturing his erring wife.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. You’ll laugh again, then you’ll cry some more. This will go on for some time. But one question will remain: how on earth could melodrama have remained the predominant dramatic art form for a hundred years? Well, it did…and it’s back! Touring various dates October 2012.